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How to Avoid Common SEO Errors that Hurt Your Rankings

Everyone talks about how you can increase your ranking in Google. But people rarely tell you the mistakes to avoid.

Entrepreneurs usually have to make the mistake to find out what they have to avoid.

In this post we will tell you the most common SEO errors that you must avoid to rank well in Google and other search engines. So let’s get started!

Low word count

Word count indirectly affects your SEO as a value adding post will be at least 500 words long. In fact, posts with word counts between 2000 to 3000 words are ranking at top of Google.

A study by SerpIQ found that word count of around 2500 was ideal.

Word count of below 500 will not do much for your ranking and hence should be avoided. People will not gain much from such a post and low time spent on your page is considered bad signal by Google.

Long Title

Title tags are important for your SEO because they appear as the clickable link in search result and are the first thing a user sees and judges your site on. Long titles that are above 65 characters will exceed display limit and hurt your click-through rate.

An attractive title that fits in the results space is important to rank on first page. The idea is to strike a balance between a long tailed title and the optimal length of 60-65 characters. Use tools such as To The Web to get a snapshot of how your page will appear in Google search results.

Duplication of Content

Duplication of page content confuses web crawlers as to which page they should rank. This also directs your traffic to two different pages and divides your page authority. You can use Google Tag Assistant to check for any duplication.

Also use canonical tags on your pages. They tell Google which pages to rank in case of identical or duplicate content

Missing Description

Description is the content that appears just below your title in search results. It is the second thing that a user reads after your title and hence is important to get them on your page. Pages missing this critical description will hurt your SEO efforts. As pages on your site increases the possibility of missing description also increases.

Use tools like SEO MozPro to check this regularly and update your meta descriptions.

Server Errors

A server error is a response by your server indicating that it is unable to load the page. Too many server errors can pull down your ranking within a matter of hours. This error could be:

Code 500 – internal server erros

Code 503 service unavailable

Both the errors will close access to your site by humans as well as Google crawlers leading to a significant drop in rankings. A study by Search Engine Land found out that ranking for keywords dropped as server errors increase for a site.

Insecure Pages

HTTPS is a protocol that allows secure exchange of user data with the site server. Not having a secure page negatively affects SEO. Two of the most common problem with insecure pages seen on the web are-

-Mixed Content, i.e. having both HTTP and HTTPS content on one page

-HTTPS pages linking to insecure HTTP page.

Your page must not have any insecure content or link to any insecure resource.

Low Quality Links

You must be aware that the quality of link that point to your site affect your ranking. But did you know that the sites you point to are also important. Linking to spammy websites and insecure pages will negatively affect your rankings. Therefore be sure to link to sites with good reputation and domain authority.

Loading Speed

Loading speed directly affects your SEO metrics. Every fraction of second is crucial when it comes to page loading. You can take some measures to decrease your page load time if it is more than 1.5 seconds. Consider browser caching, faster server response time, compressing images and content for faster site experience.